Look Down...

At the bottom of the blog here and you'll see a nice little "Pulp Newsstand" from the folks over at Issuu.
I will be updating it from time to time allowing you to peruse (for free!) some of the mags on the Bastard's shelf.

As the holidays slow things to a crawl here in Hollywood, I will be sprucing up the joint a bit (adding some new functions, getting rid of the crap and so forth) so I can organize you pulpsters into the massive legion of creatives I know you to be.

In other news, I am pulling notes and resources for the forthcoming Pulp Legion Electrogram on how you can (and should) harness new media for your projects. This one's a big one - worthy of its own book - so bear with me.

I will be having coffee today with another new media creator and pundit - Jill Golick - who is visiting La La land from Canada. I am certain it will be a brain-busting good time.

So until next time, hang out at the newsstand below, flip through the rags and maybe buy some candy from vendor.

I have nefarious work to do...

Whew!

Finished the last round of materials for AFM and received confirmation the client has them and loves them because they are the greatest marketing materials EVAR!

So now I can go over to the corner and have my wonderful cardiac arrest. Isn't film wonderful?

While I'm clutching my chest over here in the corner, possibly stroking out from an aneurysm brought about by the ever present "hurry up and wait" deadlines combined with economic and social stresses -- I want to point you toward something Cousin Jill highlighted the other day.

That something points the way toward changing the game for all of us, but I'm not going to be coy about it - it does mean a revolution. Now I'm not talking about pickaxes and torches and IEDs or anything like that. What Eric Garland is calling for here is an understanding of the fundamental realities facing the motion picture business today.

Don't think so? Try this:

Garland: Yes, but Surfthechannel.com, (an online site where users can find links to a plethora of unauthorized shows and films) doesn't care about that. They're happy to serve up current and past episodes of "24." And just like music, Hollywood's first reaction to that will be "Well, that's just not fair. That's jumping the turnstile, that's breaking the rules. We have to shut that down, because if you remove that option then people will be more patient." You won't remove that option, and you're losing valuable time if you focus on removing that option at the expense of improving that option and bettering that option, beating that option. The music people used to say, "How can you can compete with free?" And now you ask anybody in digital music and they'll tell you, "I'm just trying to compete effectively with free." They've embraced the very condition that up until very recently they said they would reject. I'm telling you, you are going to compete with free. Sometimes you're even going to win, once you make the commitment to living in the marketplace as it is and not as you wish it were or as it once was

"Living in the marketplace as it is..." that opportunity knocking my friends. It's spelled H-A-R-D-W-O-R-K, but it is opportunity to think outside the theater screen or cathode ray tube / flat screen.

But unfortunately, we have to contend with the old guard who want things the way they once were:

Q: Are paywalls one of the solutions? That's what Hulu's leaders are considering.
Absolutely not. What you have is a very effective antipiracy tool in Hulu, and I'm specifically drawing on the numbers and not just citing anecdotal evidence. People really do prefer the Hulu experience. So you actually have cannibalization, for once, of a pirate market by a legitimate market. You have a legitimate market stealing share and audience away from a pirate market. Put that behind a subscription wall and they'll just go back.

Read the whole article. Front to back, back to front. It's a significant shift away from the line of "It'll never happen" or "How can I make money if I'm giving it away for free?" It's an honest assessment of what is going on right now all over the world and points to putting together business models to suit.

More on this in the Pulp Legion Electrogram. It will probably be finished around Turkey day because I will be down in Santa Monica next week attending AFM and several seminars including the SAGIndie panel, The WGA West panel and the Film Independent panel. I want to incorporate what I experience there into the e-gram.

Early rumor has this AFM tagged as a grim affair.

Drip...Drip...Drip...

Ted Hope over at Truly Free Film (which you really do need to place in your Google Readers, kids) had a post up regarding how slow things haven't changed from the dire predictions he made in an older article he wrote for Moviemaker in 1995 titled "Indie Film is Dead.". What's interesting to me is that he lists many problems with the Industry at that 1995 point that make me shake my head a bit.

So I thought I would take a few moments to look at this more closely and add my pithy prose to the mix and discuss the slow drip of change:

Acquisitions are driven by marketability, and marketability alone. Art has no value. Sure a film has to be "good" to be picked up, but what does a distributor truly look for when it acquires a film? Uniqueness of vision? Independent spirit? Discipline? A controlled or unique aesthetic? Try again. Like their Hollywood counterparts, the first item on their menu is a marketable concept, one they already know how to package.

Here's the problem with this statement - As an audience member, I don't care how unique the vision of the film is, or the person's indie spirit, their discipline or unique aesthetic. I want to be entertained. I want to connect to the story in some way and be asking myself, "What happens next?"

Marketability means how easy it is for an audience to connect to and immerse themselves into the movie. If you can't connect to the audience in some way - then why do it?

The major specialty distributors only seek films they believe can gross $2 million at the US box office. There is no small acquisition anymore. When a distributor offers a minimum guarantee of $300,000, they are essentially stating that they believe the film will gross over $2 million at the box office (the MG is nothing more than an advance against future profits – the size of the advance is in direct correlation to a distributor’s conservative estimate of the film’s future revenues).

They know it's a lot of work to distribute a film theatrically. Especially in 1995 when you didn't have digital cinemas. They have to have a reasonable cut off point where they know their efforts are going to be worthwhile monetarily.

There are too many pictures out there that received a theatrical release that did not deserve it. It was the wrong move marketing-wise and choked too many theaters and distributors. The audience simply wasn't there to support it.

The "Big Little" distributors have a surplus of films; they don’t want yours (particularly if it’s an art film). Miramax doesn’t even try to hide the fact that they have over 40 films on the shelf – they promote it. If one of the larger specialty distribs were to pick your film up today, you’d be waiting a year for your premiere.

What's true then is true today...if you're using a "Theatrical release first system." Having a library of content and moving it around so you always have some sort of income flowing in is the model that allowed Trimark to become Artisan to become Lionsgate. No distributor wants to release a movie just to release it. They want to position it so it does its best.

I urge all of you to read the rest of Ted's article and his postscript. Then I want you to start rethinking how to release a movie - and think about what a movie actually is to your business plan - by watching this:



(courtesy of Jill Golick)

Your movie in today's marketplace is simply the tip of the iceberg. Hollywood is The Titannic. We all know how that story ended.

Turn it around. Build the audience first: through email, through the content, through interaction. Then sell the containers: the DVD, the merchandise, and finally the screening event in a theater.

Be in a Frenzy...

Jill Golick reminds us that Script Frenzy has started...

If you need and excuse to bang out a first draft this is it. Structured in a similar manner to NaNoWriMo (sp?) it aims to get as many people as possible over the hump of writing the first draft of a script.

So go sign up... and write.